Angel of Small Death
by nauticalx3
Summary: There are few things that can compromise Dalton, and they've found his one weak spot.
1. Chapter 1

It all goes south quickly.

Dalton thinks afterwards that maybe he should have expected something to happen: things had been running too smoothly. As far as missions went, it was straight to the point, a cut and dry deal. The target they were meant to secure – an American techie caught up in something bigger than he could handle – was being held in a low risk building, protected by fewer guards than he could count on one hand. It should have been easy enough to slip in, take out the bad guys, and get their man. His mind flashes back to Syria, Niger, to Moscow; the team had proven to work under pressure and, despite his better judgement, he has faith that, at least for now, nothing could stop them.

After minutes of surveillance by him and Preach, a flash of movement caught Dalton's eye. Seconds passed and he felt a rush of relief flood through him as Amir came through the door with safe, albeit roughed up, man by his side. A quick scan of the men in front of him revealed no apparent life threatening ailments on either of them and he allowed a small nod of approval towards Amir. Noah's voice blared over his headset, asking for his word to verify the target was secured.

"Target is secured," Dalton assured. "Alright, McG, get us out of here," he said

"You got it, Cap. Faster than you can say –"

His voice is drowned out over the mic by a loud cry. Dalton knows it's coming from the mic, but he finds himself whipping his head in the direction he knows Jaz is in. _Jaz._

" _Jaz? Jaz, you okay?_ " It's Amir, the first to voice his recognition of the source of the sound. Seconds pass without a reply and Dalton feels his heart beginning to race. "Khan, are you there?"

Dalton's eyes zoom across the face of the drab building she should be posted in. It's perhaps 100 yards away, not too far in theory, but he knows that she is ten floors up and if she is in danger, it takes only seconds for things to turn deadly.

There are seconds of silence across the mic before a muffled voice and then an ear piercing scream resonate inside their ears.

If there was any doubt before that Jaz was in danger, it's gone now. There is no hesitation from Dalton: as soon as he hears the feminine scream, he is relaying orders to the rest of the men. "Preach, you and Amir get to the safe house with Flynn," he gestures to their target, unwilling to risk his safety. Though they cleared the building that he was held in, there was no doubting more hostiles were possibly on their way. He had no way of knowing if it was these men or someone entirely different with Jaz, but he was determined to get to her and kill whoever it was. "McGuire, start heading up to her last location. I'll be right behind you."

He gjves no time for acknowledgement of his orders or consultation with Noah and Hannah before pulling his pistol out of its holster and taking off across the street. Down the road, he can see McGuire outside of the building she's posted in, exiting the car that was supposed to be their easy way out of there and using a shoulder to bust the door. Seeing McGuire enter spurns something in Dalton and his feet drag him towards the building even faster. He gives little regard for his own cover as he makes his way towards to door, mind focused on the fate of his team member rather than his own.


	2. Chapter 2

When strong hands suddenly wrap around her and throw her from her spot at the window, Jaz can't help the noise that escapes her mouth. It's some strange mixture of a cry and a gasp, a sound of shock at first and then pain as her back crashes against the wood floor. She knows she has no room for panic or hesitation, no time to consider who the assailant is – she needs to fight. Yet, as she tries to reach for the knife that she know is in her waistband, she finds herself unable to move, seemingly frozen to a standstill for the first time in her life. Almost immediately after throwing her down, her attacker has come to stand above her with a gun pointed squarely at her chest.

She can't see his face well as it's covered with a black mask, but his voice is accented, something eastern European that she can't place.

"You move, I pull the trigger."

A shaky breath escapes her lips and despite all of her training, she can't hide her fear. Her mind is screaming at her to stay calm, but a little voice beneath it all is overshadowing her senses, whispering the truth of her reality and making her blood run cold beneath her skin. Dalton and the team are on the ground, safe with the target. Just then, she realizes she must have alerted them with her scream: beneath the sound of her own blood pumping, she recognizes the distinct voice of Amir in her ear, attempting to make contact with her through the mic.

"Do they know I'm here?"

Jaz hesitates and, before she even realizes he has moved, a boot is crushing down on her wrist that was against the floor, the full weight of the man forced upon the bone. She hears a crack and then feels the blinding pain like nothing she has ever felt before. Once again, there is no stopping the scream. This time, it's loud and pained, the shriek like that of a wild animal that had been forced a powerful blow.

"Yes!" Jaz moaned, squeezing her eyes shut for a second before forcing her gaze back on the man. He had yet to remove his foot from her wrist but he wasn't applying pressure; she was sure that if she didn't answer him, he wouldn't hesitate before sending it crashing down again. "I'm on a mic."

Had she been on another team, she knew there would be a chance she would be left. There was still an American civilian in jeopardy on the ground that had to be the focus; she knew the risk of the job, and they all understood that their responsibilities lay first with protecting the people they had signed up to serve and then with their own safety. Still, she knew that they were likely formulating a plan at the moment, especially with her confirmation that somebody was with her. She couldn't imagine any of them leaving without at least an attempt to help her. Her thoughts are confirmed almost immediately as she hears the voice of Dalton shouting out orders.

For the first time, the man takes his eyes off her to look elsewhere in the room. She knows it's her only chance to take him by suprise. She can kick up and hit him between the legs with her knee, and hopefully it would be enough to give her 3 seconds of leverage so she could attempt an escape. Just as she is preparing to do it, her small hopes are dashed.

"They're on their way, Ant. Let's get her out of here now before trouble shows up."

Her gut sinks as she realizes there are at least two of them.

Against one she had a chance, but she was hurt and they had guns; she knew that any attempt she made would be foiled. There was no denying she was a good fighter and could be sly when it was necessary, but a soldier's intuition told her that any possible chance of escape was outweighed by the circumstances. They hadn't killed her yet, so it was likely they needed her as a hostage for some reason. This wasn't necessarily reassuring because she knew what happened to hostages - torture, assault, sometimes death - but being held would give time for rescue rather than instant death.

" _We're coming, Jaz, hang on_." She barely registers Dalton's voice over the mic at first, the pain and anxiety beginning to overtake her better judgement and her senses. She is sure that her wrist has been shattered, and she is aware that she is possibly entering shock as her vision begins to swim and her fingers begin to shake against the floor.

"Five floors and I'll be there," McG reports. She knows that is too long - both men have now gathered near her feet, looking down at her through their identical masks. There are some muted whispers between them but she can't make them out over the lull in her brain. One of them - the new one, Ant, who had been by the door - steps carefully around her figure to near her head before crouching down. He is close now, face hovering above her own and hands resting against his thighs. His eyes stand out from the dark mask, clear grey circles against dark lashes. Jaz tries to memorize them so she knows who to kill if given the chance. This time, when he shifts his weight as he crouches, she knows another blow is coming her way. Jaz barely gets the chance to wince before the butt of a pistol comes barreling towards her forehead. Though it is clear his intentions were to knock her out, Jaz finds herself blinking and dizzied, but still slightly aware.

"Tough one," he chuckles, voice thick and heavy above her. "You make it hard for yourself, girl."

She can't see his eyes anymore – her focus is gone, her head like it's rattling even though it's flat against the ground. There are voices in her ear – Amir? Dalton? – she can't tell, but the sound is comforting enough, especially when the vague shape of the black gun comes crashing towards her skull a final time.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Dalton reaches the room, the only evidence that Jaz was ever there is a few droplets of drying blood on the floor and her gun tossed haphazardly near the window she would have been perched at. McGuire has beat him to the spot, but he was also too slow - somehow, they had managed to detain and get Jaz out of there in a matter of minutes without being caught. These weren't just opportunistic kidnappers: clearly, they had some skill and stake in the matter to risk their own lives and get in and out of their without detection.

" _God damnit_ ," Dalton hisses, crouching down near the droplets of blood. There isn't too much which he knows is a good sign - it's likely Jaz isn't bleeding out from her wounds, something that could be catastrophic without proper medical treatment - but he's been in the world of war long enough to know that just because someone isn't bleeding, doesn't mean something can't be life threatening. Jaz was tough: there were few things that could make her scream like he heard over the mic, and Dalton's mind was actively compiling a series of images of the worst possible situations, doing little to ease his rising anxiety. "Her mic has gone silent, too."

McGuire nods from above him and spares a glance out the window. He sees no movement, no sign of Jaz or the rest of the team for that matter.

"Don't know how they got away, Cap," he says, absently scratching his beard. "No sign of anybody out there - unless they're camped out somewhere inside here."

Dalton shakes his head and pushes himself from his crouched position on the ground. "There's - what, 15 floors? And dozens of rooms on each floor?" The building is an abandoned office building, left to rot in the old industrial city. Too big for two people to ever clear in a timely matter, no matter how skilled they were. "No way we can clear it all without knowing what way they've headed. They'll wait until we are occupied to make their escape if they haven't yet."

The whole time, the voices on the other end of the mic had been quiet. Dalton, Noah, Campbell - they've all been listening closely but refusing to interrupt in the search until their intervention seems necessary. As Dalton and McGuire stand in the empty room without their teammate and without a plan, Director Campbell thinks it's a good time to make their presence known.

"Adam?" She knows he can hear him but wants to make it clear that it is him she intends to speak directly to him. "We've reviewed the drone footage from before the raid and after: we can't see any movement around the building other than your team. These guys either have an alternate way in or know the blindspots."

"Did you get anything from Jaz's mic?" Dalton recalls the muffled voices he heard before the mic was turned off, but they were drowned out by the background noise and Jaz's own responses. Back in DC, he hoped they would have the right equipment to isolate and analyze the voices. "I know they asked her some questions or something."

"We're working on it, but nothing solid yet." This time, it's Hannah's voice. "They sound Russian, but there is no recognition within the system of the specific voices."

"Do you have _anything_ for us then?" It comes out harsher than Dalton intended, snappy and accusatory.

He doesn't know who the sigh comes from on the other end of the mic, but it is Director Campbell who responds next. "Dalton, it's a fluid case. Whoever has Jaz kept her alive for a reason, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's someone your team has encountered before. We're waiting for any sort of contact from them to see if we can get naked and a location. For now, Dalton, you get the rest of your team together and get your target on the plane back to us."

Frustration was seeping further into Dalton's bones.

Realistically, he knew Jaz had to be close; she's was probably within walking distance from them, close enough to hear if she yelled at the top of her lungs, but they couldn't get her. McGuire seemed to sense his growing anger and took a slow walk over to his side of the room, offering a comforting pat on the his shoulder. Dalton knew better than to be bitter - he wasn't the only one affected if something happened to Jaz. She wasn't the same to everyone in the team, but she was _something_ to them all.

Her and McGuire were too easy-going for their own good when they were together. It seemed as if they were eternally bouncing jokes off each other at the team's expense. Preach was protective over her, somewhere between a father and an older brother regardless of how confident he was that she could protect herself. At first, he doubted that she would ever come to accept Amir; he couldn't blame her for the bitterness she held, still upset by the loss of her former best friend. Yet, even that morphed into something more along the way: something that happened in Paris had apparently cleared the air between the two, and since then they had been acting like old friends.

If someone asked him what Jaz was to him, Dalton would have trouble pinning it down.

They were, first of all, partners. She was often the one by his side in missions, whether it be linking arms as they patrolled city streets posed as a couple or spotting together from a concealed window. In those situations, he trusted her with his life.

And then there was something else layered on top of it all. Friends, of course - but something _more_. It was blurred around the edges, a constant unsure, but comfortable, tension that existed between them. Sometimes it was him that initiated it, but most of the time it was her; she seemed to realize that he was too closed off to be the one to act upon any whims. While she certainly had control of her actions and her emotions, she was willing to risk more than Dalton was. It was something he felt like he needed in the darkest of moments: a little light in their sometimes dismal profession.

At that moment, he knows there is little he can do that will help the situation. He has no choice but to comply with Campbell's directions and situate their original target. For now, he had to wait.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: First of all, hi and thank you to everyone that has followed and commented! It's great receiving feedback because writing like this is kind of new for me, so I appreciate any comments and criticism I can get.**

 **Just a note on updating and a question for readers:** ** _would you prefer shorter updates (1-2k) more often (every other day or so) or more lengthy updates but only every week?_** **It's my busy time at college (I've had four exams this week alone!) so those are basically my options. Again, any input is appreciated! I want to make you guys as happy as I can with my work. /**

The smell of burning flesh is distinct. It's pungent, enough to make even the toughest of stomachs twist. Jaz has smelled it before, often on the battlefield when charred bodies lay smoldering in the wake of dropped bombs and landmines.

It's that smell - strong, thick, and sickening - that wakes Jaz. First, eyes still closed, her nose twitches at the stench. She can't help but inhale deeply at first, confused, and then immediately regrets it as the smell seems to cloud her throat and infiltrate her lungs. She finds herself gasping for a clear breath, desperate for relief, and it's when she covers her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her jacket that she realizes the smell is coming from her own burnt skin.

As Jaz notices the blistering, hot, red skin on her bare thigh, several things become clear through the haze that clouds her mind. She remembers being taken - the surprise of being tossed against the floor, the crushing of her wrist beneath a boot, those clear blue eyes as the metal pistol smashed against her skull. She begins to feel pain, not just at the site of the fresh burn but all over her body. She sees her surroundings: a dark, cement walled room with a frosted window on the door that's the size of a mail slot.

Last and most jarring to her are the chains keeping her feet attached to the legs of the chair she is seated in. Her cargo pants have been removed, though everything else remains intact on her body, including her underwear. She realizes they could have easily abused her body more while she was passed out, but she doubts they would go through any effort to hide that from her and, at the moment, there are no signs of sexual assault she can detect on her own body. She rationalizes that removing her pants must have been in effort to torture her more easily - it worked, too. She feels the need to squirm under the pain. Though whatever heat that had been applied was removed, it still feels like a hot iron is pressed to the sensitive skin of her upper thigh.

She's surprised to find that they've left her hands and arms unrestrained: she wonders if they underestimate her skill because of her appearance, but that idea is quickly wiped from her mind as she attempt to toy with the chains snaking around her ankles. Her hand with the broken wrist is completely useless - the second she tries to bend it to hook under the metal, a flare of pain shoots through her body and has her biting on her tongue in an effort not to scream out. Though she is sure someone is watching her somehow, she doesn't want to give them the satisfaction of being further witness to her pain by the sound of her screaming voice.

She wills herself to try again using her good arm, but the angle is difficult and, even if it wasnt, she feels weak and the chains are stronger than she initially thought. For once in her life, she feels like everything is stacked against her. She hasn't had it easy - her childhood had it's own issues, and there were horrors she witnessed in her life that she wished she could bar from her mind, but she never felt before like she was just awaiting death.

"Ah, you are awake. About time."

Her head whips around: she hadn't even realized there was another door behind her until the man made his presence known. It's obvious now as he opens it, his head popping into her sight first and the rest of his body following.

Recognition floods through her mind. The blue eyed man. This time, he is without a mask, but she can recognize him the moment their eyes meet. He is older than she expected, perhaps in his fifties, and he has a wicked grin planted on his salmon colored lips. He reminds her of a caricature, features unproportional against the backdrop of his figure.

Jaz remains silent as he saunters forward. The door behind him slams shut without his grip to hold him open, and Jaz can't help but flinch at the loud clash of metal against the frame.

"We make message for your friends."

His English is broken; she is sure that he is Russian, and her mind courses through past cases in and around Russia that could possibly be implicated in this. There were several she can recall in the region, but none of them sent red-flags off in her brain; she can't imagine when any of them could have possibly led to her and the team being compromised, yet that seemed to be what was happening.

"Fuck off," she hisses, unable to stop the sharp words from escaping from her chapped lips.

"Fiesty," he laughs and she notices how yellow his teeth are. "Camera over there..." he trails off and points a meaty finger at a desk in the opposite corner of the room. She hadn't realized the box on it was a camera, but the longer she looks at it, the more obvious it becomes. The lens is hard to discern with the lack of light in the room, but it's definitely there. "It is a live camera just for your team. When I turn it on, you smile and look pretty. Easy for you."

He takes a few steps towards the desk and poises his finger near what Jaz suspects is the record button. Before pressing down, he flashes her a tentative look. "You better hope they listen. Pretty face doesn't stop us from killing."

Despite herself, Jaz is jarred by the threat and feels herself caught in a moment of shock as the camera flash turns on in her direction, signaling that she is being recorded. She blinks several times, eyes not able to adjust to the light after being held in the dark room. When she finally does stop blinking, she still finds herself maintaining a squint that becomes more severe as the man grips the camera and walks in her direction, flash becoming brighter and more prominent in her gaze with every inch.

"US special forces," he starts, angling the camera so it captures Jaz's whole body as it is - legs exposed, chained to a chair, bloodied, bruised, and burned beneath the camera's focus. "We have something that's yours. We want exchange." He brings the camera closer to Jaz's face, attempting to capture her pain and fear for them to see.

"Boris Zhakov." The name doesn't sound familiar to Jaz. "Everyday you keep him, she one day closer to death."

He moves the camera so it is looking at her thighs and the fresh burns. The skin is flared and clearly in need of treatment - if Jaz were to guess, they were second degree burns that could easily have been worse if heat was applied for just a few moments longer.

Suddenly, she realizes how bad it all will look on a screen and what her team will think if they see it. Dalton is a strong leader - he has resolve, but knows even he can only be pushed so far before he is compelled to act. The more she thinks about it, the more fearful she becomes that they will fall into some sort of a trap trying to rescue her.

" _Don't listen to them_."

The man seems shocked that Jaz has spoken and whips the camera towards her face unceremoniously. She has a grimace pressed on her lips, eyes clouded with intent and steel resolve.

Before he makes any move to stop her, she feels like she has to continue, and in one breath she rushes to speak. " _They'll kill me anyways! Don't risk it, don't think about giving them the_ -"

Just like the first time they attacked her when she was sitting at the window, she doesn't see it coming, too blinded by the camera's flash and her urge to speak to her team. The first first that collides with her face sends blood splattering from her nose, and the second tears the skin of her eyebrow where the pistol had already made it's mark. Jaz doesn't know where the camera is or what it catches of the attack, but the flash remains on, lighting up the room and sending shadows of fists flying against her to line the walls. During some point as the two punches turns to four, and four turns to eight, and the fists migrate from her face to her abdomen and blood begins escaping from clenched teeth, Jaz begins to lose consciousness once again. This time, the darkness is welcome as the flash of the light melts away along with the sense of pain that engulfs her body.


	5. Chapter 5

Time passes more slowly since Jaz had been taken. After collecting all the information they could from the room she had been taken from (there is little there that they can find placing the assailants there, not even a hair from a head other than Jaz's), Dalton and McGuire had met back up with the rest of the time in their designated base for the mission. Almost immediately, there is a helicopter sent to pick up their initial target. The American was thankful, telling them, "I can't repay you enough for this!" Usually, Dalton would shrug it off and tell them that they didn't owe them anything - serving the people was what they had signed up for.

This time, though, everything is different. Anger courses through his veins and he has to bite back his tongue from muttering an agreement with the man. If Jaz is lost for good, there is no repayment, not with money nor praise, that can make up for it. Rationally, he knows the man means no harm: he doesn't even seem to fully grasp that one of their team members is missing, far too overjoyed at rescue and the thought of the reunion he has in store with his family. He couldn't blame him for being a little careless with his words, but he couldn't hide the slight sense of resentment as he let the man leave without even a nod goodbye.

Until Campbell contacts them, they have nothing to do but wait. The hours pass painstakingly - what feels like six hours is actually only one, and Dalton wants to jump out of his own skin and be anywhere but there in the cramped room. McG and Preach play cards in the corner, an attempt to add some normality to a situation that is enough to drive them all mad. While they maintain a weak conversation full of half-hearted quips at each other and sad shared glances, Amir sits in silence by himself in the corner with a book in his lap. For once, Adam finds himself gravitating more to the newest team member than his old friends. He pushes himself from the fold-up chair he has sat on and slowly makes his way over, eyeing the book in Amir's hand - the title isn't English and he can't make out what it says - before taking a seat next to the man on the couch.

"I hate doing nothing."

Dalton seems to shock Amir by speaking, causing him to lose his hold of the page he was on. The new member purses his lips before placing the book closed on his lap and turning to Dalton.

"We all do, but there's nothing to we can do help until we get some information." Amir seems rational and composed, the complete opposite of how Dalton feels at the moment.

"I know," Dalton sighs, running a hand through his hair. "It's just - it'd be awful if it was anybody, but there's something harder about it being her."

"She's your best friend, of course it is."

Dalton is almost shocked by his response: was that how the team saw them? There was no denying he and Jaz were close in terms of friends and partners, but they never treaded around the concept of 'best friends'. It wasn't long ago that she had another best friend who broke her heart by walking right into the line of gunfire.

Before Dalton gets a chance to reply, the laptop that sits on the table between McGuire and Preach sounds the familiar beep of a video call. Within a second, Dalton is off his seat and scrambling over to the seat next to McGuire, his finger stabbing at the button until Campbell's face pops up on the screen. Strangely, there is a black box in the bottom left corner of the screen, blocking out a portion of the DC control room behind the director.

"Dalton?" Her voice is loud and welcome over the speakers. She must have information if she is calling. "Make sure the team is all there. We're receiving a stream from the Moscow area: Noah's picked up a general location but the signal is bouncing off a few different towers."

A stream - a video from the kidnappers? From Jaz?

While this pricks Dalton's ear and he knows that even the location is useful to them, a sinking feeling begins to enter his gut. Once again, the worst possibilities flood his mind.

Campbell barely gets out another word before the blank, black box in the bottom portion of the screen morphs so that it takes up the entire surface of the laptop, clearly the work of their team in DC as the live stream begins.

As soon as a color image makes its way the screen and the bloody but familiar face of Jaz appears in the center of focus, Dalton feels rage.

He feels fire in his heart and rage in his soul like he never has before. It's not like he hasn't witnessed terrible things that pull at his heart; he's seen women, children, friends die for no good reason other than the fact that there are some terrible people in the world. He's seen men he trained with for months torn up on the battle field and walk off pieces of the former self - sometimes, that seems even worse than death, especially for a soldier that once felt like they could hold the world in one hand.

Seeing her chained to a chair felt like hands tightening around his throat: he had to remind himself to breathe, to not let his emotions get the the best of him.

" _Fuck_." It was a whispered swear falling from McGuire's lips, and if Dalton could find it within himself to speak, he would agree.

She is clearly alive, but she is in worse shape than he imagined she would be in. Though the brightness of the camera against the backdrop of the room seems to make the wounds look even worse than they might actually be, he can tell by the grimace on her face that she is in pain. There is blood on her skull and a few obvious cuts and bruises on her face, but especially jarring to Dalton is the focused views of her leg: ankles chained, pants removed, what looks like fresh, sweltering burns snaking their way up the tan skin if her thighs. He is enraged by her pain, her torture, her exposure.

Truthfully, he doesn't focus on the words booming from the speakers. The Russian accent doesn't make sense to his shocked-brain, and it's not until he hears the rough, but familiar, voice of Jaz that his ears finally tune in.

" _Don't listen to them_!"

Her voice is strained and it feels like it physically cuts through his heart.

" _They'll kill me anyways! Don't risk it, don't think about giving them the_ -"

The camera must fall against the floor, but somehow, it remains angled towards Jaz on the chair, giving the team a perfect view of the man seeming to smash the life out of their partner. With the first punch, Jaz's head swings dramatically to the side: it's the type of thing you would see in a movie, except Dalton is aware that there is nothing fake about the way his fists pound against her face or the red blood that gushes from the worsening lesions. She has no defense, no chance to even lift her hands to cover her face and no chance to run away, and for the next sixty seconds or so, Jaz is merely a punching bag strapped to a chair for easy practice. It doesn't take long for her to appear to lose consciousness and, in this case, that's a good thing - Dalton can't imagine the pain that she must have been feeling, the pain she will fill when she wakes up.

When Jaz passes out, he has a slight hope that the abuse will stop. It seems that way for a second - after a minute or so, the man draws back and shuffles off screen. The team can't bare to look at each other, unsure if that was the end of the torture they would witness or if there was more to come. Unfortunately, their question is answered moments later when he reappears with a red-hot piece of iron in his hand, dangling it close to the existing burns on the top of her legs.

It is at the moment when the tip of the iron scorches the first bit of skin that Dalton finds himself escaping the confines of the room. He can't watch anymore, physically unable to plant himself in one spot and bare witness to the cruel treatment of Jaz.

Part of what attracted him to her the most was that Jaz was somewhat of a walking contradiction. Small but strong, wise but willing to push the limit of logic. She remained cautious enough to ensure the safety of the team, but was reckless in the moments that needed action fast. She was hardly ever serious but offered the best advice, even if it was done in a roundabout way. Unfortunately, Dalton feared her contradictions could only get her so far: the combination of beauty and strength, intelligence and cunningness, ambition and recklessness - it was a recipe for trouble and she seemed to be inviting it.

Why did she have to warn them? She should have known they would know better than to go waltzing in without a solid plan. He knew she said it for their sake, but he couldn't help but be angry at her behavior, far too willing to risk herself in an effort to help. Still, if she was in front of him now, he knew he wouldn't be able to yell at her: all he wanted to do was grab her and never let go, to protect her from anything like this ever occurring again.

He isn't sure how long her torture goes on and, when he returns to the room after a long series of pacing and planning, the camera is back on the frowning faces of Campbell and Hannah. Jaz is erased from the screen, but the image of her bloodied, head lolled to the side and closed eyes, is scarred upon his brain. He doesn't ask any details about what happened after he walked out - in this case, he knows the truth can be even worse than the images that his mind forms.

Without a word to his team, Dalton sits at the table and turns the laptop so it is facing him head on. There is a tension in the air - while it is clear they've all been shocked and hurt and angered at what they've witnessed, he senses the worry aimed in his direction. He recalls Amir's words - ' _She's your best friend._ ' The others don't have to say it to him for Dalton to realize they are all thinking the same thing.

Still, he speaks with resolve when, after clearing his throat, he speaks to Campbell bluntly and states what they had all been expecting him to say: " _We're getting her out of there_."

"No, Dalton. The team is compromised; we'll have to send in another group to get her out." She shakes her head sadly on the screen but seems strong in her statement.

"You think another team knows how she will handle it like we do?" Dalton questioned, voice raising despite his usual regard towards authority. He seems to catch himself and inhales harshly before continuing. "Director Campbell, you know I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think we could do it. It's personal, sure, but there is no one who is going to do a better job. Just give us twenty four hours."

Back in DC, Patricia finds herself at the desk with her fingers digging into her temples, the stress of the job getting to her. While she trusts Dalton, she can't be sure that he - and the rest of the team, for that matter - wouldn't let their emotions control their actions if faced with a difficult situation.

"Adam, just think about it," she says, voice stern but gentle. "She may only have those twenty four hours. There's no telling how long they'll find her useful to them. Whoever goes in needs to be clinical and get the job done on the first try." The line is silent for a few moments, so she continues. "Think about what Jasmine would want - you know she would want whatever is the best for the sake of the team."

"With all due respect, Director Campbell, I think I know Jaz and what she would want a little more than you and the rest of the guys at DC. I give you my word that my team can get her out of there," he says. Then, quieter, "We won't fail. You have my word."

"It's not me you need to be making promises to, Adam. This is about Jaz and the rest of your team."

Dalton glances around the room, finally looking to his team for some input. He's been around McG and Preach enough to read their faces: a nod from McGuire confirms what he already knows they're thinking. They want to get Jaz.

"Amir?"

The newest member's eyes flash down for a second and he taps his fingers against his thigh as he thinks it over. Though he and Jaz had patched things up, Dalton still can't be sure if he is willing to risk everything for someone he barely knows. He is a good soldier, but he is neither reckless nor stupid, and Dalton can't be sure that going for Jaz isn't the most reckless thing any of them have ever done.

Ten seconds pass before Amir finally looks at Dalton. "Yeah, of course," he nods, giving his consent. Dalton lets out a breath that he doesn't know he's holding.

"You heard that, Campbell?" He stands up, adjusting the mic in his ear to be sure that the message comes through. "Its settled. You send us the location and all you know - we're getting Jaz out of there tonight.


	6. Chapter 6

**So sorry for going so long without an update! This week has been crazy with college and work and I'm pretty burnt out, but I wanted to make sure I got something out before the finale!**

 _ **side note: has anyone heard anything about the future of the show?**_ **I've got this sad little suspicion it won't be renewed** _ **...**_

Jaz is no stranger to pain.

One of her first memories is of when she was six. She doesn't remember running into the street, but she remembers the shriek of brakes before the car smashed into her small, frail body. Later, her mom told her she must have flew 5 feet in the air - it was nothing short of a miracle that she didn't get killed by the impact itself, and even more that she didn't break her neck as her body landed on the concrete ground. Something about the sounds stick with her, remind her of suffering; while she can't visualize the environment of the ambulance, she remembers hearing the sirens around her and the beeping of machines while paramedics worked to keep her alive.

When she is eleven - physically healed up from getting hit by the car but still with the biggest scars to show off to her friends - she is running towards goal on the soccer field when an older girl slides recklessly into her ankles. Once again, the memory of pain exists with the memory of the sound: the vivid 'snap' of her bone as it fractured into two, and the excruciating pain that immediately followed. Everything after that exists in a haze of cloudy flashes, and then there is the harrowing period of trotting around on crutches that just about ruins her adolescence - she hates the periods in which she was restricted, and with her leg in a straight cast and two metal crutches under her arms, she was certainly restricted.

The night of her junior prom is another one that is engraved in her brain. She cheated death by car once as a child, and she somehow did it a second time. Jaz remembers seeing a deer hesitate, taking a step towards the road; before the words could tumble from her lips, the car was spinning on ice and crashing carelessly into the awaiting metal. She remembers choking - her seat belt lodged against her neck, the blood gurgling in her mouth. Most distinct is the memory of the moment she shifted her eyes towards the driver seat, aware even in her state that no man could live in the position her best friend was in. Half of his body perched through the shattered glass of the windshield and blood acted like paint on his half of the car.

It's when she remembers that pain and the pain of losing her partner just months prior that she promises herself not to succumb to whatever torture is still in store. If not for her own sake, she won't allow her friends and partners to be subjected to the pain she's felt too many times before in her life. When you lose someone in a situation like that - something you think maybe you could have prevented if you'd just spoke a little sooner, been a little more careful - your mind has a way of making yourself seem like the bad guy. The last thing she wanted for anybody on the team was for them to feel any guilt or resentment for losing her.

Jaz knew what she had to do - no matter what it took, she would have to stay alive.

She's discovered that pain works in two ways. Sometimes, it makes you want to keep going; other times, it makes you want to give up.

When she broke her fibula during the soccer match, she wanted to keep going. Physical therapy wasn't what any eleven year old wanted to spend their time doing, but she was determined to be back on the field, stronger and better than ever before the next year.

Perhaps unsurprinsgly, the mental pain wore down at someone quicker than the physical pain. When she was seventeen, the car crash hurt, but the image of her dead best friend next to her would haunt her for years. She remembers wondering: " _Why him? Why not me?_ " And just when she thought she had gotten over it, years later after witnessing too many deaths to count through her tours of service, she relieved the same question about her partner. " _Why him? Why not me?"_

There was no question in her mind that Dalton wasn't asking himself the exact same thing. _Why her_? It wasn't that she wasn't concerned about her teammates or what her family at home would think if something were to happen, but a sinking suspicion in her gut was telling her that if anyone were to do something brash because she died, it would be Dalton.

When she wakes up, she is no longer chained to the chair. Instead, her body is slumped against a wall by no doing of her own.

This time, the pain is immense. It may because it's in the moment, fresh in her bones, but she thinks it's the worst pain she's felt in her life. She blinks and it feels like the bones of her face are going to crack into pieces at the slight lifting of muscles. At first, she could barely tilt her head down to assess the damage done to her body: still, she forces the muscles behind her neck to work, and when she does, a wave of panic floods through her veins. She knew it was bad - the pain and the thick, dried blood weighing her down let her know - but seeing her own body as if it had been in the center of a war zone was jarring even to Jaz.

Her jacket and her t-shirt are off now, removed by someone in her unconscious state. She remains in her underwear and a thin black tank top that does little to cover the mosaic of bruises, burns, and bleeding lesions dotting her skin.

If fighting had been an option before, she knows it's certainly off the table now. She would fight to stay alive, of course, but there was no fighting for freedom by herself. Though Jaz had specifically warned the team not to intervene, she was sure they were formulating a plan to get her since the minute they realized she had been attacked. If they were anything, they were loyal - perhaps even when they shouldn't be.

She knew the most she could do, for her and her team, would be to cooperate as well as she could will herself to and allow herself to heal as much as possible. There was no doubt in her mind that some type of internal damage had to have been done: the pain in her abdomin was raw and aching, and without moving around or touching the area itself, she couldn't tell if it was as simple as few broken ribs or internal bleeding of some organ on her left side. If Dalton was coming, they would have to be relatively quick.

McGuire was one of the best medics she had ever encountered. As easy going as he was, he turned into the most reliable person she knew when his med kit was in his hands. It was a welcome thought: familiar hands tending to the wounds, cracking a joke while offering a hand to hold. While McG worked, the team would offer privacy but be close enough for her to sense their presence and, as soon as she called, they would be there.

The fantasy in her brain existed only for seconds before shattering into a million fragments as the door swung open, interrupting the mental reprieve she had created for herself.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Wooow what about that final episode, I'm like crying. It's like the fix decided to come to life but we have to wait a whole month and a half to have any resolution and I'm dyingggggggggg.**

 **Additional question: anyone interested in a McG fic? I don't think I hide it very well that he is my favorite character behind Jaz (even over Dalton). I know we don't have a lot of backstory for him, so I might dabble with playing off of that.**

When the commander forwards them the details and gets them to flight to Moscow, she reveals bittersweet news: the men who have taken Jaz are essentially nobodies in terms of intelligence or terror. On one hand, Dalton is confident that they can be overpowered with ease; on the other, he is even angrier and more frustrated - how can amateurs cause them all such grief? The man they had mentioned, Boris Zhakov, seems to have no relation to US intelligence and can barely be found on any systems at all, spare for a few social media references on pro-Russian Ukrainian separatist blogs. None of it makes sense, and the more information that they don't get, the more it all seems like it's for naught. At the moment, it seems like it's just the luck of the draw that the group had been misled and thought the Americans were the cause of their problems, and Jaz was the one caught in the deadly crossfire.

As they flew in the night sky towards the Russian capital's skyline, Dalton couldn't get the bloody images of Jaz out of his mind. Truth be told, he wasn't even confident she was still alive. As much as he would like to have faith in his teammate, he had witnessed stronger men succumb to less abuse; also playing on his thoughts was what was possibly happening to her once the camera stopped playing. To hit her was one thing, but if they touched her...

"Top, pilot says thirty minutes until touch down. You have a plan?" McG remains tentative with his words. They went over a vague plan prior to flying, but Dalton said he would think over the method of action as they went along. McGuire seemed to be gently nudging him to give some sort of direction: they were all a little lost here, and Dalton was the plan guy. Nothing happened without his approval and they were aware that, when it came to Jaz, he would surely want to be in charge in order to ensure her rescue.

"Noah reported that they have two guards and an estimated eight men in the compound, so ten total," he nodded, looking out the window at the sprinkles of lights beneath them. "Simple enough on paper, but if they get any warning we are in there, chances are they'll kill Jaz if they haven't yet.

"Preach, I want you on lookout - If there is any change around the building, any movement in or out - you make sure you tell us immediately." He cast the older man a look, waiting for affirmation, before continuing. Preach nodded his approval. "I'm going to take out the guards outside first, and as soon as I give the signal, I want you and Amir," he paused, pointing his finger between McG and Amir, "to split off and take out as many as you can. I'm going to follow behind and check doors for Jaz."

"Top," McG hesitated, unsure of challenging any part of his plan. "What if we are compromised? Are you still sticking with the same plan?"

The question was laced with another unasked remark: _if we are compromised and they kill her, are you going to retrieve the body?_

"Yes, McGuire. If we have to improvise, we improvise, but I can tell you this - we are not leaving Moscow without our entire team with us, Jaz included." He was firm in his statement, his eyes seeming to threaten anyone else who dare pose alternative. While he understood the concern of his team member and friend, he also gave them the conditions before they left: he had asked their decision and, despite the risks, they had all agreed. There was no more question of if they were getting Jaz out of there, not after they left the ground. Now, as they prepared to land, it was only a question of how they would save Jaz.

 **xxx**

Dalton feels anxious: it's all going too well. Last time he felt that way, he let his guard down and Jaz got taken.

They landed just past midnight right outside of Moscow and set in motion their plan to enter the compound holding Jaz late at night. Hopefully, they weren't counting on a full blown assault and extraction - from their research (thanks to Noah and Hannah), they found out that this wasn't a group invested in the trade of hostages. Despite their apparent knowledge in kidnapping and torturing their enemies, there were no previous mentions of the sect doing anything else than small-scale violence in the name of Russia. An American hostage was completely against their mold and the team only hoped that was in their favor - they wouldn't be expecting a team to be expelled so soon if at all. It had only been the day before that the stream was shown to them but Dalton and the team has decided in tandem that there was no better time to attack than the present.

"Left wing cleared, Top." Amir's voice whispers into the mic, disrupting his thoughts. He is still lingering near the door by the bodies of the guards he killed. "Heading around to meet with McG. There were two on my side so six more in total."

"Copy that."

Dalton took a second to let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. If the plan worked, he would find Jaz behind one of the thick steel doors. As much as he wanted to see her, safe and alive and with him, he was terrified of seeing the damage done to her in person. Still, he knew he had to do It, had to find her if they had any chance at all of seeing her alive again.

His feet are as silent against the hard floor as he can manage as he tentatively steps towards the first of a set of doors, pistol drawn up in case anybody happens to wander in his direction. Anticipation itches at his throat as his hand teases the door, a moment of consideration before he decides to brashly thrust his shoulder into the upper region as he twists and pushes at the knob: it swings open without a creak and reveals an empty room, void of even a seat or an article clothing; there is no way that this is the room she was in, he knows.

"Make that four targets down," McG says clearly, interrupting his disappointment. He shouldn't have expected her to be behind the first door, but he was surely hoping. " _Hey, Top_..."

The whisper trails off on the mic and the noise becomes flooded with shuffles and sound of movement. It is as if McG is adjusting the mic on him and it's rubbing against the cotton of his shirt. Finally, after a minute or so of hushed movement and eager ears waiting on an explanation, the voice of McGuire returns with an unexpected proclamation:

"I think this might be it. It has a window like the video."

Dalton is still in the doorway of the first room he was in, feeling like his boots weigh thirty pounds on his feet. He wants to run, he wants to stay; he wants to find Jaz, but he wants to avoid the pain - he knows it's selfish, but he can't help it. Words can't seem to find their way from his lips to respond and, as he's found himself several times within the past forty-eight hours, he is at a loss for words. McGuire seems to sense he won't be getting an answer, so he pushes on.

 _"I'm heading in, Top."_


	8. Chapter 8

**Hi guys! I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who takes the time to comment, it means so much to hear that you are enjoying it and really makes writing that much more satisfying.**

A flash of terror floods through Jaz's body the moment the door swings open; eyes wide, she is prepared to see men armed with more torture tools, more angry fists, more video cameras to record her pain.

It's dark in the room, but it takes only seconds for her to realize that whoever is in front of her is not an enemy, and before she can say anything - she opens her mouth to speak but the dry blood around it cracks and makes it difficult - the figure is making his way over and muttering a string of curses that sound distinctly like, " _Fuck, shit, Jaz._ "

McGuire stands in front of her with his gun under one arm. He says something else under his breath - she realizes he must be on his mic to the others - before crouching down in front of her tentatively.

"Jaz, it's me," he's soft, whispering. He tries to squint through the darkness to take in the extent of her injuries and, from what he can see, it doesn't look good. He shifts so he is a position to help her up. "The team is here, Jaz. We came to get you out of here, okay?"

The girl nods once, pain shooting up the nerves of her spine at the movement and she can't help but flinch.

"I don't think I can walk on my own," she croaks. Her voice is rough and dry - she doesn't know how long she's been without water, but it's enough that her throat feels like sandpaper rubbing, tearing through the fragile layers of cells. "Stuff is broken, I'm not sure what." Weakly, she attempts to brace herself with her hands and push up off the floor, an attempt to prove herself wrong and show that she is okay. As soon as McGuire senses what she is doing, he moves closer, gently looping his arm around her body so that he can easily help her off the ground. She relaxes into the touch, feeling safe at last, and allows him to do the work of lifting her body from its crumpled position on the floor.

"Thank you," she whispers, allowing her head to lull against his shoulder. When they are standing, she is able to remain on her feet and move her legs well enough, but he still does most of the work of keeping her upright and steady.

Suspringly, she finds herself relatively unconcerned about the men she knows are in the compound. If McGuire feels confident enough to lead her out in the corridor and the rest of the team is inside the building, they must have some sort of control over the situation. While part of her hopes all of the men are dead, a smaller, vengeful bit whispers in the back of her head ideas of revenge. If she had to opportunity to confront the guy who did this to her, she would make sure he died slowly and felt a fraction of pain she felt. She wasn't cruel, but she was angry.

"Amir just gave the all clear," he said suddenly, informing her of what was being said on the mic. "Dalton is going to wait at the door and Preach is parked right outside." He pauses, casting another glance down the length of her body and shaking his head, a sigh falling from his lips. "I'll get you patched up as soon as we're on our way."

Truthfully, McGuire was concerned about what Dalton would do when he saw the girl. What was on the film didn't do her beating justice: even in the dark of her cell, he could barely make out a piece of skin that wasn't marred by some type of afflication. Of course, it would hurt them all to see Jaz like that, McGuire himself included, but he kept thinking of the way Dalton stormed out of the room during the livestream of her torture. He had never seen the man turn a blind eye to something because it disturbed him, and the look on Dalton's face when the punches started was something he didnt recognize. It was anger, hurt, pain, all balled into an ugly swell in his heart.

And another part of McGuire was worried that Dalton would wallow in his own pain a little too much. He was afraid that Dalton would forget that, although the whole thing hurt the team, Jaz was the one physically abused and beaten and subject to God only knows what else. There was no telling how she would change or react to any of them or what she would expect from missions from now on; there was even the chance she would want to leave the team. He doubted she would leave - she had dedicated three years to them and was clearly in love with helping people during the job - but there was always the chance that she would want to give it up, and if that were they case, none of them would be in the position to be angry or blame her for that decision.

"Ready to move? I can carry you if you need," McGuire said, slow and careful. As a medic, was worried about her stressing any injuries presen; as a friend who knew her well, he was worried she was too proud to ask for the help herself.

Despite everything, a small smile tugged at the corner of Jaz's lips and she gave a barely perceivable shake of her head that he would have never noticed if he didn't feel the movement against his own chest.

"I think I can manage. You just keep me upright and I'll do the walking, okay?"

His reply was wordless, the smallest comforting squeeze of her shoulder from the arm that was wrapped around her. When they started moving, she couldn't help a hiss of pain at the first few steps, but she never asked to take a break or for more help as he began leading her out of the room and the down the hall to where he knew Dalton was waiting in anticipation and agony. They had to move slow, but Amir and Dalton had apparently eliminated all of the existing adversaries, so unless some sort of backup was coming, they were in the clear to move as slowly as Jaz needed.

" _They're all dead_?"

The question startled McGuire for some reason - it was a statement posed as a question, something she seemed to have picked up on but wanted to make sure. McGuire nodded, knowing she could see him in the more-lit hallway.

"They're all dead," he assured. She was silent and he focused on the sound of his feet clashing against the ground, and it was then that he realized she was still barefoot, the soles of her feet dragging against the rough concrete floor. He should have looked in the room for the rest of her clothes but, at that moment, he had more concern for successfully getting her out of there.

They're getting closer towards the front door when her voice breaks the silence again, another question thrown his way: "Is Dalton angry with me?"

"Not with you," he concedes, furrowing his brow. They should be meeting him within a minute. "I mean, it didn't help when you went off on that video, but no, never with you."

"Okay, McG. Thank you." It's soft and barely above a whisper, and as soon as it comes out, they turn a corner and a shadow stands ahead of them under the frame of the open front door. Dawn is beginning to draw in and a backdrop of soft purple and yellows illuminates the space behind the shadow. There is no mistaking the figure waiting for them - from the stance to the way the gun is held, to the foot tapping against the ground impatiently, it's clearly Dalton. The moment he sees them turn the corner, he feels ice cold and like his heart has stopped midbeat.

Part of him wants to run, meet them half way and swoop in and take Jaz from McGuire's arms to tend to her himself. He has to stop himself; he knows that is certainly the last thing she needs, for him to force any type of intervention. The other part of him is hoping that, any second, she will drop the limp and run to him and wrap her arms around his neck, telling him that she's fine, she's okay. And he knows that isn't going to happen, either - as she gets closer and closer, the state of her health becomes more obvious. He sees the burns he noticed on the camera standing stark from the skin on her thighs, and he sees the way her wrist is head limply against her stomach. McGuire seems to be doing most of the work to keep her walking, but she's able to at least shuffle her feet against the floor enough to be mobile.

Twenty feet away turns to fifteen, and fifteen turns to ten, and before he knows it, she's inches away, head bowed and refusing to make eye contact. Dalton can see McGuire's eyes shifting between her beside him and him waiting expectedly, seemingly also surprised by the lack of any sort of movement in his direction.

Time freezes for a a minute as no one says anything, and then suddenly, a familiar voice he's missed so much graces Dalton's ears, then shatters his heart.

" _I'm so sorry, Top._ "

Finally, she looks up at him, making eye contact for the first time. He's never seen such sadness in someone's eyes and, if possible, she seems to shrink further away from him and deeper into the hold McGuire has on her as if the strength she showed to walk out of there was suddenly deflated. The horror of her ordeal is printed on her face: physically in the form of cuts and bruises and blood that acts as face paint, and more subtly in the dull glaze of her eyes and the trembling of her lip.

Dalton doesn't know what to say, how to respond. The last thing he was expecting was an apology -at worst, he was expecting cries of pain upon meeting and, at best, he was expecting her to crack an innapropriate joke. Seeming to sense the anguish running through Dalton, McGuire steps in to intervene and hopefully temporarily alleviate whatever it is both of them are feeling.

He keeps eye contact with Dalton as he speaks, hoping the man will understand his message. "Jaz, let's get you back so I can fix you up, alright? Top, you want to go ahead and make sure it's all clear for us?"

Dalton gives a nod, unable to form the words for another response. He has to force himself to turn away from Jaz and get his gun at the ready as they make the brief move from the building to the car. As he moved, he heard the footsteps trailing behind him but didn't dare look back, keeping his eyes scanning the area around them between them and the vehicle. The pathway was rocky and while the rocks and pebbles crunched beneath his and McGuire's boots, he imagined the bottom of Jaz's feet torn to shreds by the edges, but he still didn't dare to look back.

After Dalton makes it to the vehicle, the two of them arrive only seconds behind him. It's a military vehicle with three rows and seats; Preach and Amir are perched in the front, Dalton climbs in the final row, and he can only watch as McGuire helps Jaz get on the leather seat of the middle row. As soon as Amir and Preach see her for the first time, it's like they've gone mute: neither knows what to say or what to do other than to drive as far as they possibly can from the compound. The safehouse the team had prepared was only a few miles away, within a twenty minute drive, and it seemed to everyone that they couldn't get there fast enough.

"Water?" McGuire, now analyzing the injuries closer, called out. There was movement from the front seat and a worry-stricken Amir held out a full canteen for the medic to take. Dalton watched as McGuire braced her head from the back while she greedily took a few gulps, pausing so she could swallow it all and then repeating the process until the canteen was empty.

"Just a few minutes to go, Jaz," Preach reported, his first words to the girl since seeing her. He wished he had something less clinical to say, but there was too much tension in the air for him to comfortably give his admissions of relief at her life.

"Thanks, Preach," she mumbled, allowing her eyes to close for a second. A second turned into a minute, and no one realized until the even breaths were rhythmically falling from her open mouth that she had fallen asleep despite the situation and the bumping of the car along the road. When Amir heard it, he turned his head around, eyes focusing on Jaz for a second before dancing between McGuire and Dalton behind him.

"She's going to be okay?" Amir's question was loaded; was he talking about physically or mentally?

The answer wasn't clear: McGuire nodded from above her and, behind him, Dalton shrugged. It was clear to them all that getting her to safety offered little solace to their team leader. His expectations of the rescue had been shattered and he felt helpless; he was supposed to be the one to find her and get her out of there, and he couldn't even do that.

 **xxx**

"You want to tell me why you apologized to Dalton and then avoided him like the plague?"

The question startles Jaz. She had been laid back on the hospital-like bed of base, revelling in the comfort of the barely there padding and the warmness of McGuire's hands as they carefully cleaned out her cuts and dutifully applied antibiotic ointments to each. There were a few he had to stitch when she first came in, angry ones that still were bubbling blood hours after they had been forced upon her flesh.

After falling asleep on the way the the base, they had managed to get her inside without waking her. While she slept, McGuire used a portable xray machine to briefly scan her and see what he had to deal with: a few breaks in her hand, and two broken ribs, but nothing else internal. That was a good thing; while the cuts and bruises certainly looked awful and painful, they were superficial and, spare some type of infection, would heal relatively normally.

When they did wake her up, Amir had a cup of soup prepared for her and a warm cup of coffee with too much sugar, and she surprised them all by how quickly she managed to devour them both, even while only having one arm she could lift. She made little conversation as she sat there - no one asked questions, and she didn't offer any information besides the fact that she "didn't feel as bad as she looked." After eating, she knew it was time to be taken care of, and she followed McGuire towards the medical suite with little argument, and that's where she continued to sit now.

"I didn't avoid him," she said softly, turning her head to face the wall beside her instead of the medic. "I just didn't really want to talk to anyone."

"You're talking to me," he pointed out. There was a pause and she heard him shuffling but didn't bother to move her head again to find what he was doing. After rummaging through his med kit for a few moments, she felt his hand gently take hold of her palm, fingers tracing over the swollen mess that was her wrist. While he had agreed with her that it was broken the first moment he took to look at it, it wasn't as bad as he originally feared. The xray had displayed that the displacement between the bones wasn't large and there was no complete shattering, meaning surgery wasn't neccessary. She winced as he began to wrap something from around her palm, circling towards her wrist.

"That's different and you know it." She sighed, conceding and turning his head back towards him. "You saw his face when he saw me. He was horrified."

McGuire pauses to look up and her and narrows his eyes, unsure of the direction her explanation is heading in. "We were all horrified when we saw you, J. From the moment you were taken, it was a guess to any of us whether you were alive or not and, if you were, what you were going though. Listen, I'm not trying to force you to talk to him if you don't want - you know I would never do that - but I'm just saying that I think it would mean alot if you sat down with him and talked through it. For _both_ of you."

His eyes went back down to her wrist and, after placing the thin wrap, he began putting on the splint he had pulled. When the swelling went down, she would get a cast put on but, for the moment, the splint would do the job well enough.

"What do you mean by that?" Her voice was raised, pitch off key.

"Jaz, whatever you guys think of each other, you don't hide it very well." He swore he could see the skin of her face turning red beneath his gaze. "He'll understand if you need time for this."

"It's not that," she sighed, picking up the hand he wasnt working on and running it through the loose strands of her hair. It was still slightly wet from a brief bath she attempted to take as soon as she had finished eating and before McGuire took her to check her out, telling McGuire she couldn't let herself sit still until some of the dirt was washed from her skin. "I don't want things to be different. I know he cares - I know you _all_ care - but I'm worried it's going to change how he looks at me."

McGuire didn't respond, so she continued. "McG, I don't know what happened to me while I was there. There were times when I was passed out and I woke up with more bruises and burns, so there's no telling what else they did to me," she cast a look downwards, unwilling to say more specifically what she was concerned about but guessing the medic would pick up on the subtext of her words. "And no matter what they did, I'll get through it, I'm sure of it. But I don't want to be looked at as weak or this broken thing now." Her lip began to tremble and she forced herself not to cry, not now. "I'm so worried that he's not going to want me on the team anymore, or he won't let me to on solo ops, or he's always going to be second guessing me."

It was clear that Jaz had been quietly dwelling on the thought; while the team was concerned about her safety and her health, she was concerned about her position on team. Throughout her years of service, she had never felt like she fit in better in any role than the one she held with Dalton's team. It wasn't just what they did, but the way the team worked. It was loyalty, brute determination, and cunningness that bound them all together, and it was the combination of it all that she feared would kick her out of the team. If Dalton felt he couldn't reasonably trust her anymore or that her experience would compromise her actions, he could easily send her packing with nothing more than a few rushed goodbyes.

McGuire sensed the flood of emotions threatening to spill from Jaz and used his feet to move the wheeled-chair he sat on so he was closer to her face rather than her lower body. She seemed unwilling to make eye contact with him, but he could see from where he was the unshed tears filling her eyes.

"Hey, Jaz, it's gonna be alright," he took her hand, offering a comforting squeeze. "Dalton wants you on the team just as much as everyone else, and as long as you want to be here, he is going to be beind you one hundred percent. I don't think you realize how wrong it felt when you were gone - it's like a whole chunk of the team was taken," he admitted, shaking his head at the memory of just a day prior. "I can promise you that once you're up and moving again, you'll be doing ops like any other day."

A weak smile tugged at the corner of her lips at the same time the first tear fell. "You promise?"

He let out a chuckle, nodding. "I promise, Jaz," he paused and then offered her a titled grin, playing on a smirk. "Can you promise me something, too? I mean, it's the least you can do for the guy who found you and patched you up, in my opinion."

She laughed and nodded, the tears freely falling now. It was a wild mix of emotions like she hadn't felt before rushing to the surface all at once: relief, happiness, anxiousness, sadness, pain, fear, hope. She knew she must have looked crazy - the tears making streams on her face but laughing for the first time in days.

"Promise me you'll at least try to talk to him, Jaz?"

She nodded, an affirmation in the promise to McGuire and herself that, along with whatever else was to come, she would clear the air with Dalton as soon as she could **.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hi guys, I just want to apologize for the lack of timely updates and the not so great quality of this chapter. Life has been crazy and I'm trying my best. Thank you for your continued support and I hope you all enjoy.**

x

When he walks in and sees Jaz for the first time since just after her rescue, Dalton is caught off guard by the recovery she seems to have made in just three days. She is laid on the bed with a soft-looking blanket thrown over her feet and dressed in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt that looks three sizes too big for her body size. The sleeves of the sweatshirt hang over most of her hand, but he can see the blue color of the splint that McGuire had applied peaking through.

Most of her skin is covered, so he knows it may be misleading, but her face shows fading bruises and healing cuts far less severe than when he had first laid eyes on her in the compound. There is still a bit of puffiness around her eyes, and he has never seen her look so tired or worn out, but she manages to greet him with a small smile as she recognizes his face coming through the door, and the lifting of her lips does wonders to bring the lightness back to her face. As he returns the smile, he sees her shift and shuffle so that instead of lying flat, she is leaning her back against the pillows behind her and sitting upright.

"Hi, Top," she says, her voice sounding rougher than he remembers. Maybe it's because he is used to her constantly talking in a frenzy around him - he's barely heard her speak in the past week and there is something unfamiliar about it. "I was wondering when you'd be stopping by."

He chuckles and shakes his head, slowly making his way over until finding himself near the chair that was placed next to the bed. With one hand, he turns it to the back is to the bed and throws his legs on either side of it as he plops down. His hands rest on the top of the frame and he places his chin on his clasped fingers.

"I got the feeling that I wasn't the person you wanted to see." He means it as joke, a lighthearted jab, but her smile vanishes and is replaced by the slight pursing of her lips. He can't help but notice how pink and glossy they look, like she just put on some type of makeup, but he knows that isn't the case. "Or that you didn't want to see anyone at all," he continues, shrugging.

Jaz sighs and turns away from him, the slightest shake of her head visible beneath his gaze.

"You know it's not that, Adam."

"Then what is it?" He told himself prior to going in that he wouldn't allow himself to get frustrated, angry - she doesn't deserve that and she certainly doesn't need it while she tries to get better - but it's hard to control his emotions when his heart feels like its going to beat out of his chest. "Why did you apologize to me back there? Do you think I blame you?"

There's a brief period of silence and tension fills the air like thick smoke between them. Jaz refuses to look in his direction, eyes narrowed as she states down towards her covered feet rather than at him. She shifts on the bed once again, wincing at the movement. Though she is healing well, the pain still dwells and rears its head at every slight twist or turn of her bones. Dalton watches as her uninjured hand moves to prod at her abdomen, earning another grimace from her lips as she finds the current sore spot.

"The last thing I want to do now is fight, Jaz," he concedes, sighing. He surprises her by tentatively reaching a hand around the back of the chair to rest it on her forearm, an attempt at comfort. While she initially flinched at the touch, it takes only a second for her to find warmth in the touch and she wishes she could sink into his grasp. Jaz is terrified of breaking down - it was bad enough that she let herself break in front of McGuire; she felt that if she didn't want Dalton to change his outlook on her, she had to stay strong and refuse to break.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to fight, either." His hand still rests on the material of her sweatshirt and she finds herself moving her splinted hand so it is nearby, her fingertips just barely brushing the rough skin of his hand. If he notices the feather-light weight of her fingering skimming across his hand, he doesn't let on. Jaz squeezes her eyes shut tight for a few seconds and forces out a long breath before allowing her eyes to migrate in his direction. "I just feel so...i don't know. It all happened so wrong, didn't it?"

"Of course it was wrong," Dalton hissed, shaking his head. She felt his hand squeeze a little on her forearm where it still rested - not in anger, or meant to hurt her, but an effort to keep her sealed to him. "They attacked you and kidnapped you, Jaz. You did nothing wrong - you know that, right?"

When she lacks any sort of reply - a rarity from her, the girl who usually has the sharpest tongue he knows - he realizes she doesn't believe that, and he knows he has to make her see it.

Usually, Dalton wouldn't think twice about putting himself physically close to Jaz. They barely had boundaries between them, especially within the past few months. He couldn't point out what it was, what exactly caused the change from partners into some strange, sexually charged friendship, but it hadn't always been that way. While they had always worked well as a pair as long as she was part of the team- if there were to be an undercover pair, it was almost always them as a romantic duo - there became a point where the lingering touches and meaningful glances morphed from contrived identities to reality. There was no arguing that both he and Jaz weren't romantics - he could never imagine the day where they would have a candlelit dinner that turns into soft touches and pet names - but there was still something tangible between them that didn't exist between her and Preach or Amir, or even McG. Still, despite this, he found himself unwilling to move from his spot without first asking her permission. With her being taken and abused, he found himself needing to ask, needing to hear from her own mouth that it was okay.

"Can I?" He doesn't explain but instead gestures towards the bed she is laying on, but it is clear she understands his intentions as she nods and scoots over as best as she could. Her side is nearly pressed against the wall now and she finds herself uncosciously pulling the blanket tighter around herself, a small shield of isolation between her and Dalton as he pushes away the chair and takes a seat on the bed. His movements are slow in an effort to keep Jaz calm: while he could have quickly swung his legs up and laid more easily with her, he takes the time to gauge her reaction before finally getting both legs straight in front of him on the bed so that their positions are mirrored and they are side by side. She gives him the smallest nod, barely perceptible, but he knows he has her permission.

She surprises him by casting him a spare glance and then lifting the blanket she is using up ever so slightly, a silent offer. It's as if lifting the blanket is a physical symbol of her opening up the smallest layer of himself to him, and he feels like he has to accept if he wants to get anywhere with her.

When he moves under the blanket, they suddenly seem closer than they've ever been before; surely, that's not actually the case - he can't count the times she has fallen asleep laying on him during long car rides or flights, her body leaned against his side or his chest - but there is a new sense of electricity where their arms are against each other, even through the layer of her sweatshirt. He doesn't know what he expects - maybe more silence, or some sort of explanation. He certainly doesn't expect to feel her move on the bed beside him, turning so that pain makes her grit her teeth but so that she is facing him completely. Before he can tell her to roll back over, not because he doesn't want it but because there is clearly discomfort at the movement, she is tossing one arm over his abdomen and laying the rest of her upper body on his chest wordlessly. He brings one arm to snake around her body, bringing her tighter against him.

"I'm sorry, Dalton. I know that's not what you want to hear, but I can't help it." Her hand tightens its grip on his shirt and her voice is muffled. "I just don't want things to change."

"They don't have to change," he replied, tentatively reaching up a hand to run across her face, brushing the stray hairs away from her skin with a gentle touch. "I just want what is best for you, Jaz. I don't want to make this about me...but it killed me. That video. I was sure they were going to kill you, and at the same time, I was scared that they wouldn't and you would have to live with that memory. If anything like that were ever to happen again..." He trailed off, shaking his head.

"I know, Adam, I get that," she attempted to move her head to look up at him, but couldn't shift her body the right way and settled back on his chest. "But if I lose this team, it's all for nothing, isn't it? We all take the risk everyday and I'm no different from you or Preach. It would be awful for anybody, but we would get through It, right?"

A sigh falls from Dalton's lips and she feels his breath on the top of her head. "It should be, Jaz, but it's not. Not for me."

"That means you don't want me here anymore?" It amazes him, how quickly she can turn from soft to outraged. Her voice is high, concern mixing with pain and anger. If this is it, if this is how he kicks her off the team, she can't see how she could ever get over it.

"You know I want you, Jaz." There's a long pause while she waits for the 'but' of the statement and she finds that it never comes. "And I care about you enough to let you choose what you think is best for yourself. If it's really what you want, you know me and the team would be behind you one hundred percent. I just don't want you to regret it."

Something about the admission makes Jaz's heart calm; though she had been wary the moment he stepped through the door and it was clear he wasn't completely okay with everything that was happening, she was confident now that Dalton would support her rather than rushing to get rid of her to avoid another catastrophe. Despite the relief rushing through her, she feels the strength within her sway. It doesn't take much to have her feeling weak at the moment, and the relatively brief conversation with Dalton has, as simple as it's been, taken the energy right from her core.

Dalton doesn't get an sort of reply, and he doesn't press, assuming maybe she needed some time to think it over. It isn't until he hears the soft, even rhythm of her breaths beneath him that he realizes she hasn't answered because she has fallen asleep on his chest, still wrapped tight around him.

He doesn't know what is yet to come, but for now, he realizes that these are the moments he must learn to appreciate and relish in. If the taking of Jaz had taught him one thing, it was that he shouldn't take things for granted - specifically those that meant the most to him. With the ghost of a kiss placed on the top of the sleeping girl's head, Dalton finds himself struck with a newfound wonder and a strike of concern at the thought of what was next to come.


	10. Chapter 10

It takes two weeks in bed for Jaz to feel like she is going mad.

It's her own fault, probably. Right at the beginning, Director Campbell had rung her and given her permission to go home for a while; in fact, the director had insisted that she take time off. Jaz wholeheartedly refused at first, and then the second time she asked - after her conversation with Dalton about her future on the team - she had been even more adamant about staying with the team, even if she had to miss out on a few missions. Something about the thought of going home made the situation more real to Jaz: she could just imagine the fuss of her family, the questions and coos and the, " _Poor girl_!" comments that would be thrown her way. While the team was more cautious with her than she had remembered, they knew better than to dwell on what happened more than they needed to.

So she chose to stay, and with that choice came the requirement of following the doctor's orders - and her doctor happened to be McGuire, who she was convinced was secretely set on her being bed ridden for the rest of her life. She understood being in bed for a few days, even a week - but when fourteen days since her rescue had passed and he was barely allowing her to get her own food and take a walk around the base herself, she felt like challenging his medical expertise for the sake of her sanity.

"I'm not telling you I want to climb Everest, McG," she hissed, growing increasingly perturbed with the smirking man. While he had come in her room that morning to check on her, expecting her to be tucked under the covers with a coffee by her side, he had instead walked in on her struggling to pull a t-shirt over her body. She was still restricted by her wrist, her ribs still healing, and it was clear in her pained stance and jilted movements that she wasn't anywhere close to completely healed. When she managed to finally get the shirt over her body - glaring daggers at him the whole while - she immediately began her rant. "I just need to do something. Let me lift weights or walk the dog or something - anything, man. I'm dying here."

"You're definitely not dying; as your doctor, I can guarantee that."

His attempt at a joke was met by a pinch on the skin of his forearm, hard and sharp. Satisfied by causing him pain, Jaz smiled and sat down on the bed, reaching for the pair of sneakers that sat on the bedside chair. Again, he saw evidence of her injuries in the movement - it was clear her ribs were screaming at her at the movement, but she did her best to try to hide it in an attempt to show strength. He knew his friend well enough to know that she wasn't going to take no for an answer and she'd be more likely to hurt himself proving that she was okay than if she were doing something small to regain her strength.

"Fine, fine," he conceded, throwing his hands up in surrender. She didn't look up at him but he saw that she grinned as she began slipping the sneakers on her feet and tying the laces, and it was a welcome sight. While her spirits seemed to have lifted during the past week or so, there was still the lack of her smart remarks and the easy laughter he was used to. "Definitely no Everest yet, though. A walk might not be too bad of an idea."

When her shoes are on and tied, she pushes herself off the bed slowly and stands up straight, apparently taking it as an invitation to get going right then. Before she can step past him, he puts a hand out to stop her.

"Woah, woah, slow down Khan. How about grabbing Dalton to go with you? And not for long. I don't want to come back here in two hours and see you still missing, got it?"

She rolled her eyes but allowed a small smile to tug at her lips. As irritating as it was to be confined, she knew that McGuire had only the best intentions. It reminded her of being a teenager and needing her coach to practically drag her off the field the time she tried running through the pain of the stress fractures in her legs. Typically, she wasn't one to let the pain of an injury keep her on the sidelines for too long: there was something especially jarring to her in seeing the people around her participating when she physically couldn't.

"Okay, doc, whatever you say." With that, she squeezes past him and out the door.

 **XX**

When Jaz asks Dalton to come for a walk with her, he looks surprised but pleased. She makes sure to mention that McG gave her the green light as long as they didn't run a marathon or anything. When she asks him, She doesn't miss the shared glance between Amir and Preach, who had both been sitting perched at the couch, each clutching a book. There is an urge to roll her eyes at their juvenile behavior that she has to fight: if anything, they could hide their eavesdropping a little better.

Dalton is already dressed and just has to put on a pair of sneakers before he is ready to leave. When they go, the first moment that the door swings open nearly takes Jaz's breath away. As she inhales the cool air and feels the warmth of sun on her skin, She realizes that this was the first time she had actually been outside the base since they rescued her. She attempts to remember the last time she remembered being outside: it's not when they took her into the base, because she was sleeping, but when McGuire rushed her to the car after finding her in the cell. There is a phantom feeling of rocks against her bare feet, aches shaking her body, but she clears it out of her mind quickly and instead looks at Dalton with a small, satisfied smile before taking the first few steps from the door.

They don't talk about where they will go, or how long they plan to walk - it's silent, but comfortable. Their base is in a relatively rural area, but there is a public park nearby that had a walking path and a track around it; she doesn't know who leads who, but they end up with their feet meeting the cement of the walking path that snakes through field.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Jaz is surprised when Dalton breaks the silence; he wasn't typically one for prying unless given the right signals, and she didn't mean to be hinting that she wanted to talk now. When she looked at him, a side eyed glance as her feet continued even steps along the pavement, she found that he was staring at her, seemingly measuring her every movement as they went along. He noticed everything wrong about the way she was walking: the way she was attempting to conceal the limp, the bruise on her brow that the sunlight highlighted, the way her broken wrist rested uncomfortably at her hip. It was as if every time he thought she looked like she was better and rid of a majority of the physical reminders, they became more obvious in his eyes. It was when he saw her scratch at the spot of her jawline where McGuire had to apply stitches that it all became too much; he couldn't help the words from escaping.

"What do you mean? I thought we talked about it already," she nudges an elbow into his side, an attempt at maintaining the relatively lighthearted air between them. There hadn't been much conversation since they left the base, but there wasn't anything uncomfortable about it. "We already did the whole 'fight and make up', right?"

"That's not what I mean, Jaz," he sighed, stopping halfway through his stride. He caught her off-guard, reaching a hand out to grasp her good wrist but clearly surprising her. The second his fingers made contact with her skin, she found herself flinching away from the touch, a reaction he hadn't even considered. It takes only another second for herself to realize her actions, and almost immediately, she's shouting curses at herself in her mind. "I'm sorry," he mutters, not giving her the chance to talk before turning his head away. He brings up a hand to scratch at his growing beard, a nervous habit that seems to have become more common since Jaz had been taken.

"No, no, don't be, it's my fault." Her face is red, embarrassed and frustrated with herself. "I'm just - I'm trying to be as normal as I can."

"Please, just stop blaming yourself for everything, Jaz. If I hear you apologize one more time, I'm going to go crazy." She is looking up at him with those big, brown eyes, and he realizes that what had happened the last time they had a serious conversation was nothing compared to what was to come. He can practically feel the air being sucked out of the space around them, and he realizes that on the path of some public park is possibility the worst place it could take place, but life doesn't seem to have much regard for what is ideal. "I know you signed up for this life and you understand the risks as well as everyone else, but I can't help but feel like I need to do more to keep you safe."

She opens her mouth to speak, likely to argue about how she is worth no more than anyone else on the team, but he cuts her off before she gets the chance. "What I feel for you Jaz..." he trails off, shaking his head. She still looks like a deer in headlights, wide-eyed and lip trembling. He doesn't want to make her cry, but he can't seem to stop himself from continuing.

"You're not just my partner or teammate or even my best friend. I don't know when it all changed, Jaz, but I know I truly realized it for the first time when I heard you scream over the mic. Thinking of what could be happening - seeing what was happening over that video...it was like a whole chunk of my heart was ripped out. And I don't know what that means, but I know I've never felt that way before. And I know this is the worst time for you and I don't want to any pressure on you because it is the absolute last thing you need, but I also need you to know why it kills me to hear you blaming yourself. I just want to help you, Jaz. Whatever you need. You know I'm here, right?"

And that's when the dam finally breaks and, for the first time, it all truly seems to crash around her. She had felt pain in the cell, and she had shed a few tears with McGuire, and there had been familiar faces of real demons in her dreams, but this was the first moment that the mental anguish seems to overtake her whole being. Dalton seems to sense it before she does: before she is tumbling to her knees, the weight of the world coming down on her shoulders, he steps in front of her and allows her to fall into his chest. As the sobs begin wracking her body, her fingers grasp at the cotton of his t-shirt, bunching up between her knuckles. His arms immediately wrap around her, shielding her from the world and any prying eyes that may exist outside. He knew how she would feel about people seeing her, how she would probably even resent the fact that he was seeing her that way.

"Shhh, I'm here," it's a whisper in her ear and, if anything, it seems to make the crying more intense instead of calming her as he intended. His hand rubs the small of her back soothingly and she keeps her face buried in his shirt. "I'm going to start walking us back, okay?" There is no response, so he knows he must make the move without her permission this time. He shifts so that she is still attached to him but faces towards his shoulder rather than chest, and with an arm wrapped securely around her shoulders, he begins leading her back to the base. They hadn't been walking for long and thankfully the park isn't far, so even with their slow movement, they manage to make it back within a few minutes and they don't encounter anybody on their way, thankfully.

 **XX**

Jaz sees nothing, feels nothing; her feet are moving but she doesn't seem to be controlling them. It's not until the light that blind her disappears into a dim burn that she gets a dose of reality: Dalton has led her back to the base.

If the team is milling around the front room of the base, Jaz doesn't notice. She doesn't notice that they move towards the back room until she feels her knees knock into the plush of the couch they had set there, and even then, her eyes are too clouded and her head to dizzy from the breakdown for her to truly take it all in.

He lays her on the couch and sits down at the other end. When she begins to scramble over on her own accord and wraps her arms tightly around his neck, he can't hide the surprise on his face. Still, his arms instinctively wrap around her and he feels her shuffling so that, though she faces him, she is practically kneeling on his thighs, body all curled up in a ball as she sniffles into his neck. He feels the wetness of tears against his skin; though the sobbing has stopped, it is clear that the tears are continuing to fall.

He doesn't know what it was that started it all, but guilt tugs at his heart. It had to be what he was saying - either because he overwhelmed her or upset her.

"Jaz," his voice is soft, hesitant. "If there is anything I can do - "

There is the distinct feeling of her shaking her head against his skin. _"Just shutup and hold me, Adam_." Her voice is weak and tired and it cracks with her words, but the snarkiness remains and something about it, despite their current position, brings a small bit of relief.

He complies with her request and he isn't sure how long they sit like that, her curled up and gradually stopping the flood of emotions, but not moving from her spot attached to him. There comes a point where it begins to feel uncomfortable, the weight of her body solely on his thighs, but he knows he is in no position to complain about pain, nor does he want to. It seems that with her tears has come his own little breakthrough: in that moment, all the pain in the world wouldn't make him let her go, and he gets the inkling that whatever is in his heart for her is something more than a easy crush between friends. Its as if the fate of his own health and well being depends on hers, a connection that he would have never understand if he weren't feeling it in the moment.

There is the sudden feeling of absence all at once when Jaz finally untangles herself from his body and sorts herself. Her face is red, puffy, lips chapped. She brings up her sleeve to wipe whatever wetness is still beneath her eyes and sniffs once or twice, but the look in her eyes is less sad than he expected to see, given the past hour or so.

"I feel like I don't know what to do with myself," she whispers to him, surprising him with her admission. "I know I need to feel it to cope with everything, but once I start thinking about it, I just want to push it out of my mind. If I stay in that room I'm going to go crazy, but I am terrified of breaking down like this everytime someone brings it up."

"Jaz," he takes her good hand, now released from him, and holds it in two of his own. Both of his completely encase her small hand. "If that's what it takes, you know me and the rest of the team will help you through it. You're allowed to feel these things, J."

"I don't like feeling weak, Adam; and I know you say you know what I mean but I don't think you do." She lets out a shakey breath and gives a few more sniffles. "I feel like I've always had to work two times as hard to get where I am because I'm a girl, and I always have to be two times as strong so that no one takes me as a joke. If it was you, Dalton - you would have gotten away, wouldn't you? They wouldn't be able to grab you and throw you down like that, to completely overtake you. It's like...I'm just having all of these awful thoughts that maybe this isn't for me. As much as I want it, maybe I am not good for it."

"I'm a little biased, clearly, but I can't agree with that at all." Dalton gives her hand a gentle squeeze. "You're one of the best soldiers I ever met; this whole thing doesn't change that. I told you before that I can't help but worry about you when we're out there, but that's because of how I...feel about you. It has nothing to do with what I think of your abilities."

She looks away, pursing her lips like she is in thought.

"Can you do me a favor then?"

Dalton narrows his eyes slightly, brows furrowed at the anticipation of what she may ask for him. He probably doesn't have it in his heart to say no to her even if he should, so he finds himself nodding despite his hesitation. "What is it?"

"If I get like that again, just promise you'll be there? I don't need a speech or anything, top. I just want to know that if I break down, I'll at least have someone there next to me to pick up the pieces."

Dalton's heart breaks a little at her words, at her anticipation of another breakdown and at the thought that she wasn't convinced the team would be there for her in it's entirety. He nods and, despite himself, finds himself pulling her into a hug and mumbling an agreement into her neck. While she is stiff at the movement at first, she eventually sinks in, melting into his body like she had when she was crying. It's different now, more tense now that she is completely aware, but she feels warm and safe and cared for in the grasp more than she had felt before. There is an apparent softening of Dalton that is happening right in front of her, and a part of her wonders how far she could push it.

She pulls back and there is a slight hint of disappointment on Dalton's face at the lack of contact.

"Can you do me another favor?"

His skin feels like it's on fire. She looks so small and soft and if she hadn't pulled away, he would have never let her go. Something in the air has shifted; there is no longer the sense of this being only about her comfort. She has something playing on her face - a fire in her eyes, a newfound sense of strength in the way she sits - that has him following her commands, letting himself be molded to her whims like a piece of putty in a child's hands. He nods again.

"Can you kiss me now?

It's the last thing he expected and it's the only thing he needs to hear: he has to remind himself to be gentle with her as he complies with the request, moving quickly to cup her cheek in his hand and bringing her lips up to meet his. There is a combination if shock and wonder and strangeness in the feeling of her lips against his, a familiarity that shouldn't be there and the clouded thoughts that maybe this shouldn't be happening. He pushes that thought away - they could deal with that later - and dares to bite at her lip, deepening the kiss; she responds as he hoped, a hummed sound of pleasure against his lips as she sinks further into the moment.

Sadness has somehow formed into lust, and while Dalton knows better than to take it further than a kiss, he can't help it when his free hand that isn't against her cheek finds the bare skin at the hem of her top. He makes no move to lift it or to explore further, but the feel of her soft skin against his rough hands sends shock waves through him: he feels like a teenage boy having his first kiss. There is this feeling in the bottom of his throat, butterflies escaping from his stomach, and it's a feeling of hope and relief that he hadn't felt in ages. If one thing is certain to him, it's that he can't picture a future now that doesn't have Jaz in It, and he can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing.


End file.
